The Federal Communications Commission has spent $30 billion over the past decade on subsidies for phone service in high cost areas, but it has never developed outcome goals or measures to assess whether the subsidies have accomplished the intended results. Congress should require the FCC to...

Reform of federal programs and regulations that subsidize phone companies in rural areas is a perennial topic of debate at the Federal Communications Commission and in Congress. Economic analysys suggests several principles that would lead to a reform plan most conducive to overall consumer...

During the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has engaged in a series of rulemakings to determine the regulatory status of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The Supreme Court's recent decision in the consolidated cases of National Cable and Telecommunications...

The number of regulations and their economic impact continue to grow. Yet the quality and use of economic analysis to inform regulatory decisions falls far short of the standards enunciated in executive orders governing regulatory analysis and review. Both the president and Congress have...

Independent regulatory agencies face increasing pressure to conduct high-quality economicanalysis of regulations, similar to the regulatory impact analysis conducted by executive branchagencies. Such analysis could be required by evolving judicial doctrines, regulatory reformstatutes, or...

Several D.C. Circuit decisions that remanded regulations to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) between 2005 and 2011 provide a natural experiment that permits researchers to identify the correlation between judicial review and the quality of regulatory agencies' economic analysis and...

Numerous regulatory reform proposals would require federal agencies to conduct more thorough economic analysis of proposed regulations or expand the resources and influence of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which currently reviews executive branch regulations. Such...

Federal appeals courts have vacated several Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules due to inadequate economic analysis. The SEC, pledging to do better, published staff economic analysis guidance in March 2012 that covers many of the same topics executive branch agencies address in...

Since 1974, executive orders have required executive branch regulatory agencies to produce some form of economic analysis when promulgating significant regulations. However, both case study research and regulatory analysis “scorecards” find that the quality of regulatory analysis varies...

Scholarly research demonstrates that Regulatory Impact Analysis often falls short of the standards articulated in executive orders and Office of Management and Budget guidance. More often than not, agencies do not appear to use the Regulatory Impact Analysis to inform major decisions. Regulatory...